[Libreoffice-bugs] [Bug 140829] Breaking links does not reliably work.

[bugzilla-daemon at bugs.documentfoundation.org]

https://bugs.documentfoundation.org/show_bug.cgi?id=140829

--- Comment #7 from Philip Jackson <philip-jackson at gmx.com> ---
I wanted to make a new version of a book I wrote in Writer around 2016. My
master document has 16 chapters with 68 images linked in (as distinct from
embedded). The odt file is 6.4 MB and the images total another 5.4 MB, they are
b&w line drawings in png format.

My standard practice which I've carried out many times over the last few years
(but not in the past year) is to make a copy of my book-document.odt file and
then to break the links in that copy so that the images are embedded. Then I
save the file and move the copy to a new directory and prepare the new edition.

This time, however, the link breaking didn't work fully. To break the links, I
go Edit > 'Links to external files', highlight all the links and click "Break
link". Checking on Edit then shows 'Links to external files' greyed out and
right-clicking on any image and checking the properties doesn't show any path
for the image. So all looked good and it appeared that the links had been
broken and the images were embedded.

After moving to a new directory, the first 7 chapters were ok but the remainder
showed missing images. Moving the file back to its original directory got all
the missing images back again and Edit > 'Links to external files' showed that
half the images were, in fact,  still linked.

Various trials showed that breaking the links 1 or 2 at a time worked (as did
right-click on the image and then 'Replace'). Attempting to break four or more
links at a stroke appeared to work but saving, closing and reopening the file
(without even moving to a new directory) show that the links are all still
present.

I have repeated these trials many times using both LO 6.4.7.2 on UbuntuStudio
20.4.2 and also LO 7.1.2.2 on Windows10. The result is always as I've described
above. So I don't suspect a fault in my installations but I do wonder if
something has changed within Writer since I made my original file in 2016 
relative to the linking process? Prior to making my copy of the original file,
I made a few corrections and minor editorial changes but nothing touching any
of the images.

I see that J-B Faure mentions waiting for all images to load and then selecting
images and clicking 'Update'. I had all images displayed correctly in the open
document - it takes a mere few seconds. But in Edit > Links to External Files,
no matter whether I select 1, 2 or all links, the Update options are greyed
out. I see that there are two options 'Automatic' and 'Manual' and Manual
appears to be selected but the options are all greyed out and not available to
me.

I got tired of closing and reopening the file after breaking 2 links and ended
up completing the task by use of the right-click and 'Replace' option.

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